Yellow Bug
The Yellow Bug is an item featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It first appears in the first episode of the first season of Once Upon a Time. History At night, Neal drives the yellow bug to a closed amusement park where he and Emma have a conversation about both of their pasts. Affection between Neal and Emma grows, and they fall in love. The couple carry on life as thieves. One day, after a successful robbery, they jump into the car and kiss, right before making their way to a motel. When Neal finds a wanted poster of himself, Emma decides to sell stolen watches so they can earn enough money to run away to Tallahassee, where they plan to stop robbing and begin a new life. After getting the watches, Emma joins Neal in their yellow bug and the two celebrate their victory by kissing. Before he leaves to pawn the watches, Neal tells her to meet him at 9:00, but he never appears. Instead, a cop shows up and arrests Emma. Two months later, Neal meets a man named August on the outskirts of Vancouver, Canada. Neal drives up in the bug and asks August how Emma is. August reveals that Emma was sentenced to prison. Neal demands to know more, but August reminds him of a deal they made months earlier. Neal tells the bug license is clear and hands over the keys to August, as well as a keychain he once stole for Emma and a large sum of money that he wants her to have. Via mail sent from Phuket, Thailand by August, Emma receives the keychain and car keys, but not the money. While in jail, she also learns she is pregnant. In 2011, Emma is visited in Boston by a boy named Henry, claiming to be the child she gave up for adoption ten years ago. She decides to take him back home, to a town named Storybrooke. During the trip in her car, the boy reads a storybook. He believes every story in the book actually happened, and tells Emma all fairytale characters were brought to the real world by a powerful curse cast by the Evil Queen. After a few hours, they enter Storybrooke. As Emma and Henry get out of the yellow bug, the boy’s therapist gives the address of Henry's mother, the mayor Mills]. Emma then drives to the house and gets to know Regina and the town sheriff, Graham. A few minutes later, on her drive out of town, she notices Henry left his book on the car seat. When she looks back up, a stray wolf on the road causes her to swerve the car, hit the town marker and fall unconscious. The next day, she wakes up in jail for driving drunk, but is released to help Regina and Graham find a missing Henry. After meeting the kid in his castle playground, Emma drops him off at his house and later checks in the local inn, determined to stay for a week to get to know the boy better. The next day, Emma is evicted from the inn by the owner, due to the mayor's last minute reminder of a "no-felons policy". Next, her car is booted just as Regina calls to arrange a meeting with her, during which she says Henry's idea of a curse is crazy. The boy overhears her and is upset, but later that day they reconcile as Emma seems to accept to move on with his plans against the Queen, in a mission he calls "Operation Cobra". Out of a place to stay, Emma begins sleeping in her car while looking for open rooms in the town newspaper. The relationship between Emma and Henry's teacher, Mary Margaret, who he claims to be Snow White, grows stronger and Emma ends up moving in to her apartment. Emma is offered the position of deputy by Sheriff Graham, but takes time to think on it. The next morning, pawnbroker Mr. Gold asks for Emma's help in tracking down a pregnant girl, Ashley. Emma drives to Ashley’s boyfriend Sean’s house and talks to him while Henry waits in the car. Along some investigation on the girl’s whereabouts, Emma and Henry rush to stop her from fleeing town for Boston. On the side of the road, Ashley is going into labor, to which Emma drives her back to the hospital. Later, Emma drives Henry home just before Regina arrives back. On the side of the road, Emma calls Graham and accepts the job as deputy to further cement roots in Storybrooke for Henry's sake. As Emma puts the deputy badge on, an earthquake hits Storybrooke due to an old mine collapsing. When Henry enters the cave to search for proof that the curse is real and is getting weaker, Emma drives there, just in time for Dr. Hopper to get trapped down in the mines with Henry. Emma manages to rescue them, aided by a group that includes Regina, Graham, Marco, Ruby and Billy. Graham develops feelings for Emma. As a consequence, he starts having recollections of his old life as the Huntsman. When he leaves the mayor’s house after a conversation with Henry, Graham finds Emma’s car parked on the street. The woman tries to convince him that the idea of a curse is insane, but they are interrupted when a wolf shows up and attracts the couple to a mausoleum. Later that night, Graham suddenly dies. One evening, Emma, now sheriff, venture into the woods with Sidney to investigate a mysterious meeting between Regina and Mr. Gold. When the pawnbroker reveals the mayor plans to buy some of his land, Emma and Sidney drive to the town hall and break into Regina’s office to search proof that the transition is illegal. When they expose Regina, she proofs that all she plans is to build a new playground for kids of Storybrooke. Angrily, the mayor forbids Emma to see Henry. One day, the blonde talks to Henry via walkie-talkies, from inside the car, and promises to find a way to reunite with him. The presence of a stranger named August in town makes Emma curious. After sharing a drink with the man at a wishing well, Emma goes back to her car, parked near the clock tower. She brushes leaves off of the yellow bug and then finds a red metal box in the street gutter. Inside it holds Henry's book, that had gone missing. From around the corner, the stranger watches her. By car, Emma and Ruby, who is temporarily working for the sheriff department, go to the woods after Mary Margaret reports meeting a very confused David. Finding him unconscious, Emma takes David to the hospital as Ruby goes back to the station. Later, upon Emma’s instruction, Ruby drives the yellow bug to the Toll Bridge to see if she can find anything about David’s wife, Kathryn, who went missing. Not long after she gets there, Ruby finds a box buried under a wooden plank and screams upon realizing its content is a human heart. The box contains Mary Margaret’s fingerprints, which leads to her being arrested for investigation. One night, Emma walks in the sheriff’s station and finds Mary Margaret missing from the cell. Emma drives in search of her and accidentally hits a man, Jefferson, on the road. To make it up to him, she drives Jefferson home. He invites Emma into his house, where she eventually finds Mary Margaret. When the two women escape from an insane Jefferson, they find the yellow bug where Jefferson had hidden it. Emma offers Mary Margaret the keys to the car so that she can leave Storybrooke, if she wills. However, Emma admits to consider Mary Margaret like family, to which the latter decides to trust her and goes back to jail. Emma leaves the diner followed by David. As she is about to get in the car, he asks how is Mary Margaret doing. Emma says she won’t agree to see him since she is upset because he did not believe in her innocence. After Mary Margaret is released from jail, Henry calls Emma via walkie-talkie and she goes to the diner to meet him, followed by August. On their way, they pass by the yellow bug, parked near the library. Later that day, August reveals to Emma that he is the 7-year old boy who found her in the woods as a baby. When he claims to believe Emma is the savior who must return everyone’s happy ending, Emma says she did not ask for such a responsibility. Under pressure, she decides to leave Storybrooke for good. She picks up Henry for a drive in her car, but is actually leaving town with him. Henry begs Emma not to depart from Storybrooke since she still needs to save everyone from the curse. When she does not listen to him, Henry purposely swerves the car as the vehicle crashes into a ditch. Pushed by his insistent pleads that Emma's family needs her, she decides to drop the plan for now. After talking to Archie, Emma realizes it might be better for Henry if she stopped the fight against Regina. She drives to the mayor’s house and explains she will leave Storybrooke on the condition she and Henry can meet from time to time. }} After Emma and Mary Margaret fall through a portal to the Enchanted Forest, David does his best to find a way to rescue them. One day, Henry is in the car watching Jefferson and his daughter’s reunion, when David approaches to give him a wooden sword so they can start to practice fighting. When Mary Margaret and Emma safely return to Storybrooke, their friends gather for a welcome-home party. As Regina leaves the celebration, the yellow bug is parked in front of the diner. As she passes by the car, Hook and Cora observe her from the top of a building. One day, Emma and Henry hide in the yellow bug to spy on Neal’s fiancée Tamara, who they believe is the murderer of August. As they observe the couple leaving the diner, Henry talks about his desire to live more adventures, to which Emma asks if he would like to go back to the Enchanted Forest. Storybrooke once again faces trouble in the form of Peter Pan, who casts the Dark Curse to afflict everyone with memory loss. As the curse spreads throughout town, everyone gathers at the town border. Though Regina can keep Pan's curse from occurring, the cost is every single former Enchanted Forest inhabitant will be sent back to their old world while Storybrooke will disappear as if it never existed. To keep Henry from being alone, Emma drives the yellow bug out of town with him, and Regina gives new memories for both of them so they forget everything. }} }} When Little John is taken away by a flying monkey, Emma drives the yellow bug to the limits of Storybrooke to investigate the disappearing. Setting up a scheme with Regina and Leroy, they spread a rumour that a memory potion is being crafted in the town hall. At night, Emma and Regina take a stake-out in the yellow bug. In the car, the women talk about Emma and Henry’s life in New York. Emma suggests introducing Regina to Henry as an old friend, but the latter refuses, saying it would be very painful to pretend not being his mother. Upon seeing a shadow in the office, the two of them get out of the car and rush to catch the invader, but they are nowhere to be found. Under the effects of a magical plant, David starts to hallucinate with a hooded figure who confronts him about his fears of not being a good parent to the baby his wife carries. With a sword, he attacks the creature and it vanishes, right before Regina, Emma and Hook arrive in the yellow bug, asking for news about a midwife named Zelena, who turns out to be the Wicked Witch of the West. Being missing since the new curse, Neal mysteriously reappears. Unconscious, he is taken to the hospital to recover. When Emma shows up and asks what happened to him during the past year, all he recalls is the yellow bug crossing the town line the day Regina stopped Pan’s curse. Still with no memories, Henry is sick of his mother's mysterious behavior and decides to leave Storybrooke on his own. Believing the driving lesson he had with David would be enough, the kid swipes the key to Emma's car and rushes to where it is parked, near the Game of Thorns shop. However, before he can go inside, Hook arrives to stop him. Later that day, Regina gives Henry a kiss of true love, which causes the curse to be broken. }} Brought from the past by Emma, Elsa is scared to find herself in a completely new world. Determined to stop anyone from leaving town until she finds her sister Anna, Elsa creates an ice wall around Storybrooke. When Emma assures her she will help locating Anna, Elsa agrees that the barrier is no longer necessary. By car, she and Emma go to the town line, but Elsa is unable to remove the block. One night, Hook follows Emma out of the diner. As she is about to enter the yellow bug, she reveals the reason behind her evasive behavior, which is she is afraid of losing him as she did Graham, Neal and Walsh. Hook says he is good at survival, and they make up with a kiss. When Emma decides to ask Hook out on a date, Henry encourages her to drive to the diner to meet the pirate. As Emma leaves, she finds a puddle next the yellow bug. During the date with Hook, she shares her suspects that the water has something to do with the Snow Queen. The next day, a layer of ice covers part of the street as Emma drives near the library, causing her to lose control of the yellow bug. Managing to stop it, she gets out of the car. Looking around, she sees the Snow Queen and tries to fetch her. Emma and Elsa drive to Regina’s vault to confront her about a photo that shows a connection between Emma and the Snow Queen. As Emma tells her friend about the difficult relationship with the former mayor, Elsa decides to stay in the car so the two can talk alone. A few minutes later, Elsa leaves the yellow bug to follow what seems to be her missing sister Anna. Coming back and not finding Elsa in the car, Emma ventures into the woods to search for her. Getting a magical candle from Belle, Emma captures the Snow Queen and takes her to the sheriff’s station for interrogation. Infuriated at Ingrid's taunt that her loved ones will see her as a monster, Emma loses control of her powers and explodes a wall. Ingrid then escapes. With her magic spiraling out of control, Emma damages a streetlight that injuries David. To avoid hurting her loved ones, Emma enters the yellow bug and flees. At night, in the woods, from inside the car, Emma observes the view of Storybrooke. The next morning, Emma wakes up in the car. Sensing her magic flow, she tries to calm down and control it. As she gets out of the yellow bug, Henry approaches, but she forces him to leave so she won’t hurt him. Ingrid then appears; advising Emma to accept herself. Not listening to her, Emma takes off in her car. Taking some distance, she exits the car and phones Mary Margaret. She explains to her mother that she found a way to get rid of her magic. From her lair, Ingrid watches the yellow bug via her mirror. On her drive to an abandoned manor where Mr. Gold plans to remove her powers entirely, Emma crashes to the side after swerving to keep from hitting a manifestation of Ingrid, who warns that Mr. Gold only wants to use her. Emma doesn't trust Ingrid's word, gets back in the car and leaves. By the time she parks the car in front of the manor, David, Henry, Mary Margaret and Regina examine the road looking for the bug trail. On his own, Hook arrives in the mansion. Upon seeing the car, he thinks it might be too late to save her. He yells her name, but Mr. Gold appears and stops him from interfering by ripping his heart out. The spell of shattered sight is cast, and Regina estimates it will reach the whole town by sundown. Planning to leave before that, Emma drives the yellow bug to the town line. When David vainly attempts to pass through the ice wall blocking exit from Storybrooke, Elsa, Emma, Leroy, Henry, Mary Margaret and Regina realize there is no escape from there. After Ingrid sacrifices herself to lift the curse, Emma drives the yellow bug to the limits of Storybrooke. Even with the ice wall removed by Elsa’s magic, Emma senses something wrong. Realizing what it is, she explains to Anna, Elsa, Henry, Hook, Kristoff and Mary Margaret that the Snow Queen created a protection to stop anyone from leaving town. When Anna explains that Hans conquered Arendelle, Elsa urges Emma to find a portal so the trio can return to their homeland and depose the villain. }} Trivia *The yellow bug license plate is 836-M4X. *The yellow bug is featured in the title card of “Going Home” and “Smash the Mirror”. Appearances Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage. *The yellow bug appears in a photo in “The Crocodile”File:204Photograph.png, “Second Star to the Right”File:221Charmings.jpg and “And Straight On ‘Til Morning”File:222EmmaDavid.jpg. References